Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Vegetables from Jeolla, Korea

Godeulppaegi kimchi고들빼기김치

The bitter wild green godeulppaegi is soaked for days to draw out its bitterness, then dressed with anchovy sauce, red pepper, garlic and ginger. Twisted into bundles and pressed into an onggi, it is left to ripen, and a 2022 lab study sampled it at 7 days and after 6 months at 5 °C. It is a winter kimjang kimchi of Jeolla.

Fully documentedVegetables9 days – 6.3 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourcePercentages of the whole batch from the study recipe (Park et al. 2022).
Godeulppaegi, soaked to remove bitterness83.0%[park2022]
Dried red pepper powder4.0%[park2022]
Anchovy fish sauce3.5%In home practice the anchovy jeot is boiled with water 1:1 and strained clear[park2022][nfm]
Salted shrimp2.3%[park2022]
Refined salt2.3%[park2022]
Garlic1.6%[park2022]
Scallions1.4%[park2022]
Onion and ginger0.5% each[park2022]
Carrot and green onion0.4% each[park2022]
White sugar0.1%[park2022]
Chestnut slices and sesame seedIn the encyclopedia recipe, not the study[nfm]

Total time across the recorded steps: 9 days – 6.3 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Close-up: salt moving into a leafSalt 5 %

What changes: Weighted under a stone in salt water, the bitter greens slowly lose their bitterness

Step 1 of 6
Soak to draw out the bitterness
Time
2–8 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
5 %
Reported
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus sakei
Levilactobacillus brevis
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Plants with thick roots and tender leaves are best. They are washed whole, roots on, and soaked in salt water or plain water.

Flavour
bitterness drops
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

The bitter wild green godeulppaegi is soaked for days to draw out its bitterness, then dressed with anchovy sauce, red pepper, garlic and ginger. Twisted into bundles and pressed into an onggi, it is left to ripen, and a 2022 lab study sampled it at 7 days and after 6 months at 5 °C. It is a winter kimjang kimchi of Jeolla. Made in 6 steps over 9 days – 6.3 months. The longest step, ferment slowly in the cold, takes 7 days – 6 months (Park J.-M 2022) and runs at 4–5 °C (Park J.-M 2022). Salt is 5 % (Park J.-M 2022). Lactobacillus sakei and L. graminis and Levilactobacillus brevis FBL-3 do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7 days – 6 monthsReported[park2022]Ferment slowly in the cold
Temperature4–5 °CReported[park2022]Ferment slowly in the cold
Salt5 %Reported[park2022]Soak to draw out the bitterness
AciditypH 4.4 → 4.2Measured[park2022]Ferment slowly in the cold

What makes this one different

The bitter wild green is soaked for days before seasoning. It is a regional kimchi of Jeolla.

Related ferments

Safety

In a 2022 lab study the kimchi, kept at 5 °C, went from pH 4.43 at 7 days to pH 4.20 at 6 months. Lactic acid bacteria isolated from it held back E. coli and Salmonella typhimurium on agar discs but not Staphylococcus aureus or Listeria monocytogenes. This is a laboratory result, not a safety limit.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Donguibogam calls the plant gochae (苦菜). The Joseon annals list it in 1796 as godolbak. When people began making it into kimchi is not known, but it is linked to the spread of red pepper.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [park2022] Park J.-M., Zhang B.-Z., Kim J.-M. 2022, Effect of fermentation duration on the quality changes of godulbaegi kimchi, Foods 11(7):1020paper
  2. [nfm] Park Seon-mi, 고들빼기김치, National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전); KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  3. [jang2026] Jang E.-J., Lebaka V.R., Kim Y.-M. et al. 2026, Isolation and characterization of Levilactobacillus brevis FBL-3 from godeulppaegi kimchi and screening of medium components for γ-aminobutyric acid production, J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 36:e2608011paper